Within a week of his release from the ship Hood carried him to Court, and presented him to the King,--an evident proof of his approbation; and Nelson notes that the sovereign was exceedingly attentive.

The next few months were spent in London, or at his old home in Norfolk, to which and to his family he was always fondly attached.

Toward the end of October he obtained a leave of absence, in order to visit France and acquire the French language.

His impressions of that country, as far as he went,--from Calais to St.Omer,--are given in lively enough style in a few letters; but they differ little from what might be expected from any very young man deeply tinged with insular prejudice.

"I hate their country and their manners," he wrote, soon after his return; and his biographers were quite right in saying that he had been brought up in the old anti-Gallican school, with prejudices not to be eradicated by a flying visit.